(no subject)

First book you can remember reading? (for silverr)

The first books I actually remember reading were in school. I can't remember if this was kindergarten or first grade. I suspect first grade because I don't think, in those days, they started kids reading in kindergarten. The books were thin, little paperbacks, tan with pictures on the front. I don't remember the pictures clearly, but I think they were anthropomorphized animals or at least not precisely human looking. The characters were named Matt and Sam, and they had adventures in words of one to five letters.

I didn't read very fast or well in those days, but I had a friend who sped through those books and read other books. I wanted to do that, too, and set out with determination to make it so. I don't think I ever looked back because after that the books blur together, and I don't remember very many of them clearly or with any certainty as to when I read them. There are things that stand out in my memory because they made an impression, but when I read them isn't generally part of that impression.

I know there must have been books before the Matt and Sam books. I remember going to the public library regularly, and I know my mother got us library cards as soon as it was feasible. I'm not sure if the limit of six kids' books per card was library imposed or my mother's idea. I just remember that as the limit for a very, very long time. It's still a little hard for me to check out more than six books at once. I can do it, but I feel like I'm getting away with breaking the rules.

(no subject)

Yesterday, I did my three hours in the school library. I did the usual tasks, checking books in and out, shelving books.

I also labeled clipboards as the property of the library and put a bunch of half sheet wishlists for the book fair on each one for the kids to start filling out on Monday.

I photocopied and cut apart some date due slips. For a little bit, it looked like we wouldn't be able to find the right color paper (Thursday date due slips are light yellow), but the office staff dug out a stack of about fifty sheets, and I used twenty of them. Using the big paper cutter always makes me a little nervous because I can't tell exactly where the cut is going to fall and because, once I've started, I can't correct it.

I ended the day by shelf reading from the 001s to somewhere in the 500s (around 525). Mostly, I don't mind shelf reading; it's sort of meditative. I just don't like getting down on the floor to do the bottom shelves. It wouldn't be so bad if I could stay down there, but I have to get back up again to do the next set of upper shelves. In this case, there were a lot of things out of place. Most weren't too badly misplaced, but there were things that were shelves away from where they belonged, and that's generally a sign that shelf reading is essential.

I probably won't shelf read next week because of the book fair, but I expect there's plenty more of it in my future. Three hours is a long time to keep a volunteer busy, and the librarian is running out of chores for me. I think there are still shelf markers to be made for the kindergartners, but those are really low priority because those kids can't necessarily read what's written on the shelf marker and because I don't think the younger kids use Type To Learn.

I'm considering making banana bread today. I'm not convinced the bananas are quite over ripe enough, but I think that, if I leave them, they'll go bad before they get to the right stage of over ripeness.

I napped this morning for about three hours and dreamed fairly vividly. I don't remember the details, but I do recall getting up once to go to the bathroom and having the dream try to continue while I was taking care of business. I was finally awakened by the doorbell ringing when the mail carrier dropped off a package for Scott.

Cordelia thinks I should just go ahead and give Scott the Agents of SHIELD DVDs. She says that she often watches things on Netflix but still wants to own them.

Cordelia weeded her DVDs a week or two ago, and on Wednesday, we gave those DVDs to cherydactyl who does Swap a DVD (I don't remember if that's the right name or not. It's close). She has wishlisted some stuff for us in return for us giving her the DVDs we no longer want. She started listing the DVDs we gave her, using her phone, before she left the Wednesday game session. Several of the items had takers almost instantly.

Of course, there were things Cordelia wanted to get rid of that Scott or I wanted to keep. The Curious George movie springs to mind. I don't know if I'll ever watch it again or if Scott will ever watch The Water Horse again, but it's nice to have the option. The adults in the family are also really attached to Veggie Tales Ultimate Silly Songs and They Might Be Giants Here Come the ABCs. Cordelia didn't even suggest getting rid of those even though she has no interest in them. Maybe we could get her to watch Ultimate Silly Songs again. I think she's old enough to appreciate the aspects of the humor that she maybe didn't get before. I was a little afraid, too, that she'd suggest getting rid of our Magic School Bus DVDs. I'm not sure I could have justified keeping those. But Cordelia didn't even consider getting rid of them. She's even mentioned watching episodes on Netflix, so I guess she hasn't aged out of them yet.